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Subject:Re: I flunked grammar, so ... From:Matt Ion <soundy -at- SOUNDY -dot- ML -dot- ORG> Date:Tue, 26 Jan 1999 07:10:38 -0800
On Tue, 26 Jan 1999 10:13:55 +0100, David Featherston wrote:
>Should I write "The cars wheel" or "The car's wheel"? And Please, "The wheel
>of the car" is too tiresome to bear repeating.
Actually, IN GENERAL a possessive is formed by adding the apostrophe-s.
Technically, this also applies to plurals and words ending in 's' (such as
"the cars's wheels" and "Mr. Peters's house"), but that looks AND sounds
awkward and so the last 's' is typically dropped.
Pronouns such as those you listed are common exceptions, not the rule.
Probably the single most confusing one is "its" vs. "it's" -- the former
is the possessive of "it" (following common pronoun practice), while the
latter is the contraction of "it is".
Your friend and mine,
Matt
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